Thursday, November 3, 2011

As I type, Franklin is sitting on the floor next to me. It's not the calm bonding moment that you might imagine, however. The leash he's wearing is pinned to the floor by my foot because if given free reign, I can't even image the scope of destruction. The word "catastrophic" comes to mind.

These past three weeks with Franklin have reminded me of the personal oath I'd made after raising each of our canine babies, an oath that obviously I'd forgotten. "I will never get another puppy." I picture Scarlett O'Hara with the sun setting behind her, a fist raised to the sky. It's that type of oath. And yet, here I am, yet again, raising a puppy.

Those people who raise guide dog puppies, only to send them off to formal training school once they've gotten through all the hard stuff? There's a special place reserved for them in heaven, I'm sure.

And speaking of Heaven, it was the loss of Charlie's dear doggie brother, Olaf, that prompted the addition of Franklin. Charlie just wasn't himself and he looked lonely and we just knew that he'd love a little puppy brother. We were wrong. Very wrong. At his advanced age, he's like the grumpy 80 year-old man who yells at the neighbor kids to get off his lawn. Right now, Charlie wants Franklin off his lawn.

I read somewhere that by 12 weeks a puppy should meet at least 100 people. Since I'm a bit of a homebody, I've had to make a conscious effort to take Franklin somewhere every single day. In our quest to find people of all ages and sizes, we've explored parks, visited schools, window shopped downtown, and blasted through many a scene of Autumn peace and tranquility. And as tiring as it's been, I honestly can't remember a Fall that I've appreciated so fully. Nothing says joy quite like a fat puppy rolling and romping through leaves. I have no doubt that lurking within this bundle of fur are the makings of a great dog.

Golden Retriever Puppy in 2011 here also! Ours is now an 82-lb giant with a head larger than mine. He turns 1 the end of this month and is the sweetest, good-natured, goof-of-a-dog you can imagine. This age makes everything worthwhile, especially the potty training days when I swore I'd be cleaning up pee for the rest of my days. Oh, and especially the "well, I turned it on but didn't realize it was on and then I walked around the house days." Zig-zag, 30' trail of pee.

Oh goodness. We've been toying with the idea of adding a dog to our family. All of our previous dogs have been rescue (adult)dogs. But they all came with some fairly serious issues. So this time, we thought maybe we should start from "scratch" and get a puppy. But I just don't know if I have it in me to do it. He sure is adorable in those pictures, though!

Why Scravings?

The family vernacular for tidbits of food left on a plate after a meal, as in, "I'll give my scravings to Charlie," or "I CAN have dessert. This is just scravings." It seemed an appropriate word for the little morsels thrown out on our blog. Sometimes tasty, sometimes destined for the dog dish.